Morning journal and courier., 1887-08-13
A Drummer's Story of the Wreck-A
 Sight to Make Strong Men Sick.

Sight to Make strong Men Sick.
 CHICAGO August 12.-P. c. Church, commercial traveller for a New York hard- ware house, arrived from Peoria this morn ing and related many incidents of the disas-
 ter ''We did not hear about it until yester-
 day morning. g said he, land the first report was that several hundred had been killed. There were 750 excursionists from Peoria alone and special train was at once made up to go over to the scene of the accident, about sixty miles distant. friend and myself thought we would take 8 run over, but we never expected to see what we after wards did At Chatsworth there was TOW of dead bodies lying side by side upon the depot platform. A piece of paper pinned to the breast gave the name of each one. The first body we came to was ! that of Chicago drummer. We had met him the day before, and learned afterward \ that he got on the excursion train at little ! town above Peoria, intending to save time | by making another place that side of Chats | worth, but he went to sleep, passing the \ place where he was to get off, not being \ awakened until by the accidept. He was | killed outright. When we reached the place | where the accident occurred the first thing we saw was pile of mashed up coaches as high as telegraph pole. The top of the second chair car shot up on top of this,
 standing like monument at least fifteen feet higher We arrived just in time to see Mr. Murphy, @ hotel keeper from Galesburg, climb out of hole in the top of the first chair car which was just in view upon a | ,oi1a of hrO heap. He pulled out his wife and baby un- injured, but almost exhausted from having been penned up for nearly twelve hours. It was with great difficulty they were assisted to the ground. MT. Murphy then went back into the hole and brought out alive little baby. He had torn it from the arms of a dead mother. After that he helped out an aged woman whose back had been injured. These five together with two others were all that were rescued from that car. When the | hotel keeper came down asked him how 1t happened that he was not killed. He replied ! that when the crash came his wife was sitting in one seat and himself and the baby were in the one behind, near the front of the car. The baby was knocked off the seat and he stopped to pick her uI as they shot into the mass of ruins l Just at that moment, he said, timber pene
 trated the car, shooting across the place where he had been sitting and struck young lady, who sat opposite, in the neck. He was thus pinned down by the timber, which also protected him from being smashed and saved his life. He looked across the aisle and saw the young ladys head had fallen over on the back of her seat and hung only by the skin
 The sight of the dead and wounded lying II the adjacent fields was horrible. My frieno counted ninety dead bodies at noor yesterday and the wreck was not nearly cleared away. They were lying in little heaps of about a dozen, all having beer | in, The entire side of one mans face would be mashed 1n while hole as large as your fist in the fore
 head of another would show where
 the timber had penetrated. Three. .fourthi
 of the dead never knew what killed them. Il
 was sight never want to look upon again
 There were young ladies in picnic dress witt
 their white skirts saturated with blood ano
 their faces mashed beyond recognition. Ont young looking mother held her baby in hel arms when timber striking the child in tht back impaled both victims in instant death 1 The mothers face did not bear'a scratch, bu
 the expression upon it will haunt me to tht grave. I was sick at heart when returned l from the catastrophe last night It would l make any man sick. The depot at Peorls
 was surrounded by five thousand people al waiting for news. The sWltcn yaros nae ' been cleared of cars and along between tn
 rails stood rows of cots to receive the deae
 and wounded as they were brought ln Neal these cots were backed up perhaps hundred
 covered wagons and beyond the wagon
 stood one hundred and fifty soldiers to keel
 the crowd back. A committee of one hun
 dred citizens wearing crape are stationed a . the cots to take care of the victims. Every
 body says it was the jolliest party that eve
 started on an excursion. They were mefr
 as school children Hundreds had been tt
 see their friends depart, but thousands wer
 there to take their dead bodies away on tn . return.' MT. Church said that the action O
 the railroad officials after the accident wa
 condemned by almost everybody, Hundred is of people got as far as Forest on thelr way t ~ the wreck, but had to walk the rest of tn st distance-six miles. Officials rode up an
 down the tracks and few slow-going train . brought in the dead, but the wounded an
 dying were left on the ground with n
 relief except that which their partners
 grief could give them: They lay in th
 muddy fields all night with the rain beatin
 down, while their groans and cries went u
 in vain. As fast as baggage could be take
 from the cars, no matter whose it was,
 was torn open and dresses and shirts appr' e--- 1..11 ruoT7 T7r1do /